An overdose turns a junkie clean
By Marten Lewerth
Special to the Daily Forty-Niner
After lighting a cigarette and exhaling
blue tendrils of smoke, Mike began the story of how he almost died.
"I had smoked way too much, I guess," he
said about that Tuesday, Oct. 12 .
"The last thing I remember was going to
the kitchen to get some juice."
When he woke up nine hours later, the 29-year-old
was lying on the brown shag carpet in his living room, his face and shirt
covered with vomit.
A volleyball-sized chunk of carpet had
melted about an inch away from his head, where the cigarette he had been
smoking at the time burned out.
"That was the scariest thing that's ever
happened to me," Mike said.
"I mean, I'm lucky enough that I didn't
die from the overdose, but I could have started a major fire."
Mike, who did not wish to reveal his last
name, never considered himself a junkie until that Tuesday.
When he lost his job as a graphic artist,
he told himself it was because his boss didn't like him.
When his wife of three years took their
son and moved in with her mother six months ago, it was because relationships
just don't work out. Tuesday, Oct. 12, changed all that.
"I've been lying to myself for a long time,"
Mike said, lighting up another Winston.
"I used to rationalize the whole thing.
I wasn't a junkie 'cause I never shoot up."
About 2.4 million people have tried heroin
in their lifetime, according to the 1996 National Household Survey on Drug
Abuse.
In addition, 15 percent of the people surveyed
were college students between 17 and 22 years old.
Mike never imagined he would become a statistic,
let alone advance to the level of full-blown addict.
Surfer and artist
Mike grew up in Laguna Beach, an affluent
coastal community in Orange County.
His earliest memories are all sprinkled
with sand, surf and laughter.
In a picture taken when he was 13, Mike
looks like the typical California surfer boy -- sun-bleached hair, deeply
tanned and a big loopy grin that seems to be saying "surf's up!"
Mike learned how to surf when he was 10,
and the sport quickly became a focal point in his life.
In high school, Mike was an average student
in everything except art.
"My mom used to tell me how I'd always
be scribbling or drawing little cartoons, like waves and stuff," Mike said
softly, his wolf-gray eyes downcast.
Partytime
After two years in community college, Mike
left his parents' home and moved to nearby Newport Beach.
For the next few years, Mike worked odd
jobs to pay the rent and surfed as much as possible.
At a party in 1994, he met a girl named
Nicole and fell in love.
"She was so cool," Mike said. "Right from
the first minute, I knew Nikki was the one.
It was like fate or something. I was so
happy."
A year later, Mike started working for
Costa Mesa-based Quiksilver, one of the world's largest surf-wear companies.
By 1996, Mike and Nicole were married,
and Mike's position at work improved.
He became a team member in the company's
graphic art department, designing logos for T-shirts and stickers.
Around this time Mike started partying
with heavier drugs.
"Up until then, I was like everybody else,"
Mike said.
"I would drink on the weekends and smoke
pot every once in a while, but I was never a loadie."
Every Friday after work, a close colleague
of Mike threw a little bash at his apartment.
"Some of the guys were into cocaine, so
we'd hang out, drink a few beers, snort a couple of lines," Mike said.
Often, a dealer would deliver cocaine to
the apartment.
"It was kind of funny, you know?" Mike
said. "It was like, 'Here comes the pizza man!'"
Delivery man
By the time Mike's son, Taylor, was born in
1997, the delivery man was bringing something else: heroin.
"Why did I try it? Probably because of
the mystique, you know, the whole chasing the dragon thing," Mike said.
The first time Mike smoked black-tar heroin,
he got sick.
He tried it again because he liked the
way it made him feel.
Mike started out using heroin once a week.
Sometimes, a couple times a week if he
felt stressed.
This would escalate, and by early 1999,
Mike was smoking tar every day.
Losing it all
He wasn't using too much, just $20 worth every
couple of days.
He was able to function normally.
No one, especially Nicole, had any idea
of what was going on.
In February, a co-worker caught him smoking
heroin in a bathroom.
Within two weeks, Mike was fired.
"They told me that I wasn't producing like
they needed me to, and they were right," Mike said.
"But I was still pissed, even though I
knew deep down the real reason."
When Mike lost his job, Nicole was very
understanding.
Thanks to modest savings and Nicole's job
at a nearby bank, their family was not in any immediate trouble.
Mike took care of Taylor while Nicole worked.
Then Mike started using more heroin to
relieve the stress of being unemployed.
One day, Nicole came home early and found
Mike smoking heroin while Taylor dozed nearby.
"She totally freaked out and I told her
everything," Mike said.
He promised her he would stop, but he didn't.
After catching Mike in the act several
times, Nicole gave him an ultimatum.
"It was either her and Taylor or drugs,"
Mike said.
In April, Nicole finally left.
With Taylor and Nicole gone, Mike's habit
increased to a point where he was smoking $100 worth of heroin a day.
Mike said he didn't care about anything
except for getting high, until Tuesday, Oct. 12, when he overdosed in his
living room.
His son and their future
Sitting at the kitchen table of his apartment,
Mike didn't want to discuss the withdrawals.
He has been clean for almost two weeks.
In November, Mike will move to Oregon to
live with his sister and her family to help him resist the temptation to
use.
For Mike, the hardest party of leaving
is the little boy left behind.
"I want to be there for him when he's growing
up," Mike said, peering at a picture of Taylor.
"Right now I'm nothing to him. If I can't
straighten myself out, he'll never have a dad." |
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